The origins of test automation start with the computing industry. The book, Automated Software Testing: introduction, management, and performance, notes that the history of automated software tests followed the evolution of software development. Software testing in the era of large database systems that supported scientific and government programs meant that a finite amount of test procedures could test a complete system at the end of the development cycle. With the rise of personal computing, the methods for testing software changed to keep up with increased demand for new software applications and new product features.
Over a decade of domain experience has taught us that there are some of the best automation testing tools available in the market, some of which are open and some available as commercial versions. We have the expertise to help you choose the most effective software testing tool(s) based on your specific requirements and effectively use these tools to meet your exact requirements.
BeeBills is an automated invoicing software with features designed to make the invoicing process simpler for both businesses and their consumers. You can send automatically scheduled reminders to customers to pay invoices among other features. The company is based in Norway, but the product is marketed and meant for businesses in the United States and United Kingdom. beebills.com
The main goal in software development processes is to satisfy customers with timely releases of software that works flawlessly. Test automation makes it possible to execute test cases during off-peak hours, and to distribute them in parallel across multiple physical or virtual servers. Automated tests complete in a fraction of the time required for manual testing, giving the team significantly faster feedback on the quality of the application and its suitability for release.
Interactive home pages. Some small businesspeople love working with numbers, but many just want to sign on to their accounting application, do what's needed, and move on. Interactive home pages, or dashboards on these websites play two primary roles. First, they flag tasks that need attention and provide a bird's-eye view of your finances, with graphs, charts, and tables that quickly summarize real-time income, expenses, and cash flow. Second, most of these sites' dashboards contain links to working screens, so you can pay a bill or send an invoice or transfer funds between accounts—whatever needs to be done that day.
This approach works fine for the first weeks, when running checks only takes five minutes. Over time, though, five minutes turn into an hour, then two, then three. Before you know it, testing locks up the tester's computer or test environment all afternoon. So you start kicking off automated test runs at 5 am or 5 pm and get the results the next day. Unfortunately, if something goes wrong early on, all the results will be corrupted. That slows to a crawl the feedback loop from development to test, creating wait states in the work.

This web-based human resource management software automates virtually all HR processes, including employee benefits, holidays and payroll management, all from a single dashboard. It likewise can generate reports which can be used in coming up with valuable business insights. The app assists staff in managing and coordinating HR functions by providing them with additional user permissions.

Ok, you may be wondering why small businesses would need an enterprise resource planning tool (ERP)–especially because these tools have enterprise right in the name, so they should be too bulky for any small business, right? Fortunately, the technology that connects huge multinational corporations has become advanced enough that it can provide the same interconnected resources to businesses on a budget. These are the best ERP solutions for small businesses.
What to automate, when to automate, or even whether one really needs automation are crucial decisions which the testing (or development) team must make.[3] A multi-vocal literature review of 52 practitioner and 26 academic sources found that five main factors to consider in test automation decision are: 1) System Under Test (SUT), 2) the types and numbers of tests, 3) test-tool, 4) human and organizational topics, and 5) cross-cutting factors. The most frequent individual factors identified in the study were: need for regression testing, economic factors, and maturity of SUT.[4]

By and large, business software is likely to be developed to meet the needs of a specific business, and therefore is not easily transferable to a different business environment, unless its nature and operation is identical. Due to the unique requirements of each business, off-the-shelf software is unlikely to completely address a company's needs. However, where an on-the-shelf solution is necessary, due to time or monetary considerations, some level of customization is likely to be required. Exceptions do exist, depending on the business in question, and thorough research is always required before committing to bespoke or off-the-shelf solutions.

Trello gives teams a visual way to collaborate over tasks, projects, approval flows, or the next big idea. It is based on one of the most efficient methodologies ever conceived — Lean. Lean and kanban (lean’s visual project management system) was used by Toyota manufacturers to manage projects as early as the 1960s. Trello is totally free for as many cards, lists and comments as you like.

Test automation tools can be expensive, and are usually employed in combination with manual testing. Test automation can be made cost-effective in the long term, especially when used repeatedly in regression testing. A good candidate for test automation is a test case for common flow of an application, as it is required to be executed (regression testing) every time an enhancement is made in the application. Test automation reduces the effort associated with manual testing. Manual effort is needed to develop and maintain automated checks, as well as reviewing test results.

Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate.[14][15] For Continuous Testing, the scope of testing extends from validating bottom-up requirements or user stories to assessing the system requirements associated with overarching business goals.[16]

Test automation eases this burden by automating the tracking and managing of all those testing needs, including how much of the system different tests cover and what other types of testing might be required to cover all the moving parts. In doing so, test automation goes a long way toward helping ensure that teams maintain a high standard of quality at all points along the pipeline. Additionally, it allows testers to focus more time and effort on creating effective test cases to ensure the quality of the software since they’re no longer bogged down in managing all the minutia of testing needs.
The software can be utilized in managing core HR processes like payroll, benefits administration and on-boarding, among many others. This web-based tool is highly-flexible and compatible with all popular browsers. It allows employees to check on all transactions and information related to their work. Managers can use the app to get pertinent information across all existing departments and applications. Errors and redundancies are minimized as the product makes use of a single record for each employee.
The main goal in software development processes is to satisfy customers with timely releases of software that works flawlessly. Test automation makes it possible to execute test cases during off-peak hours, and to distribute them in parallel across multiple physical or virtual servers. Automated tests complete in a fraction of the time required for manual testing, giving the team significantly faster feedback on the quality of the application and its suitability for release.
This article covers the basics of automated software testing and provides a basic introduction to the vast, technical topic: what it is, why it’s necessary for the Agile IT industry, and how to make sense of the technology behind it. Along the way, you’ll find input from professionals in the test community that will help you determine what you need to explore further.
The principles of software development are just as valid when writing tests. Just like you don't want monolithic code with many interconnected parts, you don't want monolithic tests in which each step depends on many others. Break your flows down into small, manageable, and independent test cases. That way, if one test fails, it won't make the whole test suite grind to a halt, and you can effectively increase your test coverage at each execution of your automation suite.
Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate.[14][15] For Continuous Testing, the scope of testing extends from validating bottom-up requirements or user stories to assessing the system requirements associated with overarching business goals.[16]

Take a step up from Google Sheets or Excel by moving your data over to a real database. In the past, databases have been the reserve of the IT team, but with tools like Airtable and Fieldbook, non-technical teams can easily get the power of relational databases to create their own tools and systems (like we did for our content asset tracking, as explained here).

As an established solution, UFT enables enterprise mobility teams to buy into the MicroFocus ecosystem, or the HPE ecosystem, for improved support and timely releases. Although an expensive solution, there are a lot of content and guides available to help testers get up to speed testing and writing mobile test scripts with this more mature, established framework. To use UFT with Mobile Labs’ deviceConnect™, Mobile Labs recommends the use of Mobile Labs Trust™ to connect to mobile.
Its architecture is centered around plugins with the help of which JMeter provides a lot of out of box features. It supports many types of applications, servers and protocols like Web, SOAP, FTP, TCP, LDAP, SOAP, MOM, Mail Protocols, shell scripts, Java objects, database. Other features include powerful Test IDE, dynamic reporting, command line mode, portability, multithreading, caching of test results and highly extensible core.
You may have noticed that many of these solutions are either built on top of or compatible with Selenium testing. Selenium is undoubtedly the most popular automated security testing framework for web applications. However, it has been extended quite often to add functionality to its core. Selenium is used in everything from Katalon Studio to Robot Framework, but alone, it is primarily a browser automation product.
With EasyForm Expense Management, employees will no longer have to physically submit expense reports. Users can take a snapshot of their receipts and easily upload them alongside their expense claims. Thereafter, managers can quickly approve or reject expense claims based on acquired data and audits. The software also utilizes GPS technology for reconciling travel-related expenses by tracking distance traveled during a business trip. Its travel intelligence capability also provides useful insights on how to better optimize one’s cost and spend.
While automated testing has been considered essential for organizations, both large and small, to implement in order to deliver outstanding software and stay competitive in the industry, it can be tough to get started. Outlining an effective roadmap, building robust frameworks, choosing the right tools, and measuring the potential monetary impact that automation could have on your delivery lifecycle are all critical components of any successful automated testing strategy, but each step presents its own challenges and costs.

Once the software passes automated tests, it may be released into production (depending on the preferred rate of deployment). This process is called Continuous Delivery. The preferred frequency is the difference between Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment. You achieve Continuous Delivery with the steps required for CI. The emphasis on automated testing (and automated builds) for quality assurance capitalizes on the efficiency of successful test automation and is essential to this practice.

Every software project takes time before its requirements and design stabilize. A classic comparison is between the UI that can change at any time in an application's lifecycle and back-end services that may live untouched for generations. Agile projects behave differently from waterfall in this respect. If you're developing a SaaS product, you must use automation to support frequent deliveries, but you'll have to carefully consider the effort you invest in developing tests because your requirements may also change frequently. This a fine balance you'll have to learn to work with. For an on-premise solution, it may be easier to identify the stage in which automation tests can be safely developed and maintained. For all these cases, you have to carefully consider when it's cost-effective to develop automated tests. If you start from day one, you'll expend a lot of resources shooting at a moving target.
With capability and frugality firmly in mind, we rounded up 25 of our favorite software tools and Web services that we deem the best for powering small and medium-size businesses. Of course, not every business needs every type of program or service, but if your small business could use some help in any of the categories below, our list will give you a pretty good shot at picking a winner.

Spendesk equips businesses and organizations with a set of tools for efficient company expense management and monitoring. Controlling company budget is easily done by allocating a fix amount of money to an employee’s virtual card and accordingly records all transaction details in real-time, allowing for easy spend monitoring and preventing unwanted overspending.

Tipalti is a cloud-based payment automation and management software that is known for helping businesses accurately meet deadlines. The solution helps solve problems that include non-compliance, late payments, administrative overload and complications arising from human error. Time spent on financial management is significantly decreased, solving one of the biggest problems facing accounting teams.
Katalon Studio is a powerful test automation solution for mobile, Web, and API testing. And it is completely FREE! It provides a comprehensive set of features for test automation, including recording actions, creating test cases, generating test scripts, executing tests, reporting results, and integrating with many other tools in the software development lifecycle.
Unless you're a brick-and mortar retail operation that collects money due immediately, you probably need to create invoices for customers. There are still businesses that complete this task using a word processor, but they then must have a separate method for tracking invoices sent. There are more integrated, effective ways to do that if the only accounting chore you want to do on your computer is to send invoices to customers. Zoho Invoice is one such cloud-based application, as are Hiveage and Invoicera. All three provide tools for creating and sending invoices, but they also help you receive and track payments. Bill Payment Services

There are various tools that help software teams build and execute automated tests. Many teams are actively using unit tests as part of their development efforts to verify critical parts of their projects such as libraries, models and methods. Historically, testing user interfaces of desktop-based applications via automated tests have been more challenging, and currently available tools for this are usually commercial and quite expensive.

If your team members all have Google accounts (and why wouldn't they?), sharing files and collaborating on them simultaneously and in real-time is a snap with Google Docs. A word processor and spreadsheet are your only choices--no free-form whiteboarding here--but the service is free and easy as pie to operate. Upgrading to the Premier Edition brings extra space (a 25GB limit versus 7GB for free) and a conference-room scheduling system. (Standard Edition is free)
Robot is a keyword-driven framework available for use with Python, Java, or .NET. It is not just for web-based applications; it can also test products ranging from Android to MongoDB. With numerous APIs available, the Robot Framework can easily be extended and customized depending on your development environment. A keyword-based approach makes the Robot framework more tester-focused than developer-focused, as compared to some of the other products on this list. Robot Framework relies heavily upon the Selenium WebDriver library, but has some significant functionality in addition to this.
When it comes to running a small business, having the right tool for the job can make a huge difference in both your workday and your business performance. That’s why now is a great time to be an entrepreneur — you still need to wear a lot of hats, but there have never been more business tools available to help you fit into those hats a little better.
Paying bills isn't as much fun as sending out invoices, but it has to be done. You may already be managing this task through your bank's website, which may or may not excel at this service. There are few other options online for standalone bill-pay, and the ones that exist have restrictions. Bill.com rules when it comes to supporting both invoices and bills; you'll be charged $29 per user per month for payables automation only. If that's more than you want to pay, you could subscribe to Wave, which is free, and just use its bill-paying tools.
With Vyew, anyone can host an Internet session that lets scattered colleagues work together on a project in real time. This Web conferencing platform gives you a very simple whiteboard where you can upload documents for discussion, share your desktop, or create designs from scratch. You don't even have to register to use Vyew, but if you do, you get access to VoIP and other audio services. (free for up to 20 live participants; additional services extra)

Bugfender does not require any physical installation – it can be simply loaded onto any user’s device, even if it’s an obscure model you’ve never heard of. It logs 24-7, so you don’t just get crash reports – you get a forensic view under the hood of your application, even when things are running smoothly, and you get a breakdown of all the devices using your product, which is great for customer service.

The flowchart-based accounting of QuickBooks is as close to a standard in financial management as the small-business world has, and it's arguably the easiest way for nonprofessionals to transfer their books from the filing cabinet to the computer, where they belong. Most actions, from cutting a check to billing a client, are just a click or two away from the start screen. ($200)

Come to Infusionsoft for the CRM, stay for the marketing automation. Infusionsoft offers a low monthly fee for a single-user account, which includes CRM, marketing automation, and unlimited email sends. Need more user accounts to get more done? Infusionsoft charges a low monthly price per extra user. Growing teams can also add sales pipeline and ecommerce modules.

Zendesk offers modular service and support software that’s built for enabling customer communication. The most basic plans are priced per user so even the smallest businesses have a dedicated software for customer interactions. Track customer support tickets within an email-like interface where support teams can collaborate. You can also opt for specialized tools that centralize interactions from all over the web, making customer connections easier to manage.
You’ll still get a few other features besides, such as expense tracking and an “It’s Deductible” feature that can help you out all year long, making tax time that much easier. And the “SmartLook” feature enables you to talk to a tax expert in real time if you run into a problem. When you grant the expert access, he’s able to see exactly what you see on your monitor so he can provide guidance.